


Half-Life

by TheSoulOfAStrawberry



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angels, Death, Drabble Collection, Friendship, Gen, Ghost Lairs, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, On the Run, Sibling Bonding, Slice of Life, Social Services, Trans Male Character, badger cereal, ghost lore, trans!Danny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2018-11-29 08:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11436891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoulOfAStrawberry/pseuds/TheSoulOfAStrawberry
Summary: Drabble collection, mostly in which things go wrong for Danny and friends.LATEST: When Jazz got rejected from college, Maddie should have seen it coming.





	1. Catalogue

**Author's Note:**

> these are all unfinished but finished drabbles- originally part of longer ideas (indeed, some clearly use ideas from others so expect strange repetitions. like tucker's love of reuben sandwiches idk, it's very tucker right!!). hence, if you want to adopt any of these for continuation, you're very welcome! just please link me :0
> 
> also, a forewarning, but these are pretty much all negative toward the fenton parents. they're p chill in canon but i write to work through shit so go figure. plus i'm pretty interested with how certain characters would react under certain scenarios, particularly jazz, so!!

**Police** \- Danny had never particularly considered the police a threat. (police brutality, allusions to racism)

**Lair** \- After a TV interview gone horribly wrong, Danny heads for the Ghost Zone, only to realise he has nowhere to recuperate. Or does he? (allusions to child abuse)

**Social Services** \- "Jazz had been quite young when she first realised her parents weren’t like the other mums and dads, but she hadn’t really gotten her head round exactly how different they were until the day she found herself holding her little brother’s hand as their social worker introduced herself." (allusions to child abuse, allusions to dysphoria, misgendering)

**Angel** \- Danny discovers ghosts can move on, and posits an idea to Sam and Tucker. (death)

**Bagel / Friday Night** \- Danny eats a bagel in the rain. (allusions to child abuse)

**Hero(ine)** \- "The silence of 2am suburbs was disrupted with the screech of tyres and a cry of anger, and the only neighbour who’d got to the window in time could only watch in horror as Jack Fenton narrowly missed being run down by his own daughter as he attempted to blockade the driveway with his bulk." (needles, child abuse, blood, badly researched medical stuff, drug abuse, allusions to dysphoria)

**Fire** \- Danny and Vlad sit in front of a fire and discuss life, death, and the bit in-between. (allusions to canon-typical child abuse)

**Admission** \- When Jazz got rejected from college, Maddie should have seen it coming.


	2. Police

He’d always known they were in too deep. The sewing up each other’s wounds, skipping classes to fight ghosts, the maximum 4 hours sleep they all got a night? None of that had ever been normal, not by a long shot. They were 16- or, Tucker would be soon anyway- it wasn’t difficult for Danny to be overwhelmed by what his life had become every time he looked at a long, oozing gash in his side, or watch his friend’s heads lull as they sat in class, knowing full well they were drowsy from painkillers after a particularly nasty tussle with Skulker.

And yet, none of it had ever seemed as real as it did in that moment.

Maybe it was the isolation. Maybe it was the cuffs, glowing slightly, and somehow making his wrists itch even though he was wearing gloves. Maybe it was knowing Tucker was somewhere down the same corridor, just as scared and alone as he was. Maybe it was the feeling that everything had suddenly caught up with them, and not matter how much they fought, this was the end. 

By Team Phantom standards, it had been a pretty normal night- at least to start with. A bunch of low-level ghosts in quick succession took them towards the Elmerton canals, and given they’d still had an hour or so left on their patrol, they headed the long way back to their neighbourhood, towards the school, intending to swing by Sam’s before heading in the direction of FentonWorks. Alas, they were interrupted by none other than the Box Ghost- but, in retrospect, that was probably where the night had taken a turn for the abnormal (more abnormal than usual, at any rate). Danny barely registered Sam’s yelp before something hit him, and his whole body had felt heavy and helpless as he careened into the sidewalk.

Danny had never particularly considered the police a threat. He’d known Tucker long enough to know they weren’t to be trusted, but Amity Park was a sleepy city when it came to non-ghost related crime and as a result, the police always had always come across as a bit bumbling and out of their depth. 

Overcome with terror and looking up from underneath a heavy ghost-proof net to the local force framed in blinding white and blue light, he only wished they’d paid them more attention.

It had seemed is one saving grace was that the GIW didn’t seem to be involved. He couldn’t see any of their operatives anywhere, and normally they liked to get the last word in, or at the very least jibe him, so he took it to mean this was police business. However, lack of ghost expertise didn’t seem to be as much of an issue as he’d thought. He’d soon learnt that he was almost universally despised by a police department sick of cleaning up after ghost fights, and after a huge cut on federal funding, APPD had decided their only hope of retribution was capturing and charging Ghost Enemy Number One.

And so, there he was, in holding cell number 5 of the Amity Park Police Department on Maple Street, waiting to be charged with a list of crimes, with, he’d been reliably informed by a smug looking sheriff, “not a hope in Hell’s chance” of bail.

He’d definitely cried. Not until after he’d tried every trick he could muster, which, it turned out (most likely due to the cuffs) was not very many of them. All he’d managed was to make the room a little colder (which, given his Core, was probably a plus) and annoy one of the guards with a lacklustre Wail. 

But then he’d cried. Huddled in a ball, cuffs hooked over his feet, digging into his wrists, just so he could feel _something_ as his whole body shook with sobs. It wasn’t as if anyone could see, anyway.


	3. Lair

Danny didn’t resent the Ghost Zone. Well, maybe he did a little; it was hardly a secret that he had very, very mixed feelings about being half-ghost in the first place, to the extent that sometimes he didn’t know which way was up (often quite literally). When he’d confided in her, Jazz had told him this was OK. He wasn’t sure it was OK, but he smiled anyway, and she gave him that soft, knowing look that was definitely one of the upsides to getting ghost powers.

Jazz would probably have a field day if she knew he’d come here now, and why. Or rather, given the situation and how quickly he’d scarpered out of there, she’d probably be worried sick, but after hugging him way too tight (they were still siblings, after all) and stroking his hair a little, she’d definitely crack the psych books out, wanting to know why he’d escaped a local television interview gone wrong and his first thought was to come to the Ghost Zone.

It was relatively easy to justify on the surface. The people looking for him right now were… well, exactly that: people. That made the Ghost Zone the safest place for him, even taking into account the many ghosts out for his hide (also quite literally).

But of course, Jazz knew all about those mixed feelings. She also knew his past, and that Danny Phantom didn’t need to exist in the real world if he was in danger. But then, Danny was sick of hiding. Danny Fenton had Danny Phantom’s problems and every time he changed back at a moments notice to blink innocently up at his parents, he just felt like he was pushing everything deeper down inside him. If his ghost half was going to be treated as a separate entity, then it only felt right to face those problems- Phantom’s problems- in that state of being, as a ghost. That, and after his parents had literally shot him today, he hardly wanted to see them at all, even as their innocent, dim-witted son.

So here he was. Maybe he wasn’t entirely thinking straight- he was, after all, oozing ectoplasm from a sizeable hole in his side, where the Fenton bazooka had taken a chunk out of him, live on TV. Or, maybe he just didn’t think this all through. The Ghost Zone wasn’t like the real world, where you were always somewhere. If it wasn’t somewhere he knew, it’d be on the way to somewhere he knew, be it Tucker’s, Sam’s, the football field or the tallest building in Amity Park, downtown in the financial district, where he could fly to the top after hours and gaze at the stars flat on his back. In the Ghost Zone however, there was a lot of void. Once he’d flown in here, there were some places he could go, but there were no directions, not without his map, which of course he’d forgotten in his haste, and his time in a conscious state was running ever lower. He had a vague idea of how to get certain places, but even then, they all belonged to other ghosts. He didn’t want to see Wulf or Frostbite or anyone else, he just wanted to be alone and sulk for a while.

And that’s when it hit him (quite literally).

He rubbed his head, more in frustration than in pain. It was so easy to forget to look where he was going- there was so little in the Ghost Zone and he was used to floating through things in the real world pretty much without having to think about it. When he looked around, he was annoyed to find he’d flown into the only thing for as far as he could see.

He wasn’t surprised. And he wasn’t surprised it was a door he’d flown into either- there was no pattern to the way they were strewn about the Ghost Zone, and he swore they moved of their own accord too. What did surprise him, however, was the emblem in the middle of the door. He looked down at his own chest incredulously, then back up at the door, before running his fingers over the flaming “DP”, as if somehow it would wipe off. It didn’t, and his mind first jumped to Skulker, before just as quickly dismissing it. Something told him this wasn’t a trap. These doors were enigmas, and he’d seen Skulker struggle using them in battle just as much as he did. Some went to the real world, others to other parts of the Ghost Zone, and the rest? 

The rest were ghost lairs.

So was this his?

Almost instinctively, a green glow appeared in the palm of his right hand the minute he reached for the doorknob. He wasn’t sure how surprised he was that it was the same doorknob to the one to his bedroom, and for a moment he panicked that this might be a portal back to his room in the real world, which while not necessarily dangerous, was the opposite of what he wanted and made his heart skip a beat in anger just thinking about it. 

He gritted his teeth and turned the knob. There was only one way to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i ended up going somewhere with this a little (the lair, danny's dissatisfaction with the human realm when trying to work out his identity as a ghost, and his need to sulk), if you wanna then pls try "18/21/25" on my profile!!


	4. Social Services

Jazz had been quite young when she first realised her parents weren’t like the other mums and dads, but she hadn’t really gotten her head round exactly how different they were until the day she found herself holding her little brother’s hand as their social worker introduced herself.

Danny had never given her the full story, and in a way, she was glad. It made answering their questions easier, for now. She knew he had dark circles under his eyes. She knew he’d been missing a few days, that right now he wasn’t wearing his binder out of choice and was holding himself very still and tense, with flashes of pain creasing his face every time he moved. The social worker cycled through questions and she found herself trying to explain her parents’ behaviour, trying to justify why it was normal they forgot to cook, why it really wasn’t a big deal they left dangerous weapons round the house, why their children being both so highly contaminated with ectoplasm was quite harmless, for Danny in particular. The conversation continued, and they circled Danny’s secret like vultures, with the boy himself staying painfully quiet as his sister tried to justify why Danny was so cautious around his own parents.

No, they didn’t feel threatened, she said, he just has his reasons to stay out of their way. No, he’s not afraid of them. Are you Danny?

He didn’t answer, and Jazz didn’t know whether to feel betrayed or relieved.

She’d considered this scenario before. Maybe she hadn’t imagined it quite like this, and she’d never particularly positioned herself a victim of her parent’s neglect- she was just independent, was all (or at least that what she’d been telling herself). But Danny? It had kept her awake at night that she’d be leaving for college so soon and he’d be home alone with their parents. That they’d do something to him, that they’d harm him, that his secret would be revealed and she’d be all the way in Massachusetts, unable to help, if she even knew he was in trouble at all. But it turned out, danger was shaped much more like home than she’d anticipated. Forget Massachusetts, she couldn’t tell when her brother was being hurt two floors below.

It was good to know Danny was as conflicted as her, squeezing her hand under the table as the social worker talked about emergency care.

They couldn’t see Jack and Maddie. They’d been told to pick up overnight things when they’d been ushered out of Fenton Works and driven to some offices on the corner of town, but despite that, Jazz hadn’t really thought it meant they weren’t going to go back there that night, not with the amount of paperwork that seemed required to even begin to put the siblings in the system. And yet, they were driven out again, this time to an old house with a flickering porch light and peeling wallpaper where they gave her and her brother leftover pasta in colourful plastic bowls. Everyone else had already gone to bed, they’d been told, except two other teenagers, which Jazz supposed explained the faint sound of television down the hall. 

Danny barely touched his food, and Jazz was too tired to tell him to eat.

She’d later found out that Danny’s silence and unwillingness was what had kept them together- at 17 going on 18, she was too old for where they’d ended up. Without her there, even Danny would have been the oldest by a good two years. As if there would have been any way to separate them, even if Danny had been himself, Jazz scoffed. Then, she paused, and wondered if she would have preferred to be separated if it meant Danny was still being his normal, sassy, over-confident jerk self.

They were supposed to be separated to sleep too, but given Danny’s legal gender, brother and sister found themselves sharing an attic room by protocol. She’d not been lay in bed a few minutes when a chill spread through her shoulder and down her body, and she felt herself being lifted through the ceiling.

When they reached the roof, Danny appeared, looking nothing like himself in an oversized hoodie and pyjama pants (indeed they were his, but Jazz had never seen him wear them before). He buried his head into her shoulder.

“Baby brother…” she whispered, barely audible over the rush of wind in the nearby trees. Jazz almost knew what was coming.

“I’m so sorry Jazz, this is all my fault. I don’t-”

“It’s not your fault Danny. C’mon, we always knew it was going to come to this one day, no one really ever understands our family, and anyway, it’s not permanent-”

Jazz cut herself off, distracted thinking about the future. Her parents had to be investigated. She was turning 18 in a few weeks, which would emancipate her, but not Danny. And it wasn’t as if she could adopt him either, given the law had the minimum age for adoption at 25. So what then? Would he stay here? Would he be returned to Fenton Works, and if he was, would he want to? What would Jazz do- if their family was torn apart, college was immediately out, no matter how smart she was…

“They dissected me,” Danny mumbled into her shirt. Jazz jaw stiffened. She wondered if not wanting to hear the truth made her a bad person; made her as bad as their delusional parents. “As Phantom, of course. Vlad… I guess he saved me, and called social services. I don’t know if he was doing it for himself or for me, and I don’t know if I’m glad or not.”

Jazz exhaled. 

“It’s OK to not be sure. I’m not sure if I’m sure either.”

“I’ll mark the date, Jazz wasn’t entirely 100% in the know about something.” He pulled away from her shirt, smiling sadly as tears leaked from red-rimmed eyes.

“See, that’s the Danny I love,” she smiled back, wiping at his tears with her sleeve. She could see he wanted to pull away, to pretend he wasn’t crying, but something kept him close to her. Perhaps the same thing that had brought them up there in the first place. 

Watching her brother hurting took its toll, and she found herself laughing at herself as tears leaked out of her own eyes, fat droplets running down her face and pooling at her chin. She felt so stupid. She was supposed to be the strong one, she was supposed to be getting them out of this. 

Wasn’t she?

Maybe, for once, it’d be nice for someone else to be the adult for once. Just as she was sick of watching Danny tired and beaten and berated for protecting Amity Park, maybe, in her own way, she too was tired of having to hold their family together, to pick up the pieces and protect her brother. She’d never asked for any of this: her book-smarts didn’t make her independent-smart, at least, not naturally- she’d worked hard to gain Danny’s trust, to make sure she was in enough of a position of independence that if something happened, something like this, that she’d be able to do something about it. And yet, in the end, none of it had mattered. 

Suddenly, crying didn’t seem so stupid. Danny wouldn’t judge her, and it wasn’t as if she wasn’t going to cry herself to sleep anyway.

They sat like that a while, teetering on the fold of the roof, Jazz shivering slightly as she sniffed. The tears ebbed after a few minutes, and Danny leant back over, this time draping his arm around her shoulder. Given he was cold as ice, it really did nothing to arm her up, but his firm grasp and the way he held them together as they swayed slightly was comforting.

“It’s still not your fault Danny. It’s mum and dad’s fault you’re half-ghost in the first place, let alone them… y’know.”

Danny didn’t look at her.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. Then, “Do you think they check if you’re in your bed here?”

“I don’t know Danny,” she muttered wearily, and then, on seeing his face, she continued, “But if you need some time to think, I’ll cover for you. Cushions in the bed and all that.”

“Oh, so that was you,” he smiled wanly as a flash of white enveloped his body. He gave no warning of their descent, which startled her. Jazz wondered momentarily if he’d done that on purpose, but figured otherwise when he left a quick peck on her cheek before leaving her alone in their empty attic bedroom.


	5. Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a slight AU/ canon divergence or whatever you wanna call it. hopefully self-explanatory!
> 
> i can't believe no one's considered ghosts moving on before, or angels?

Tucker knew his best friend was dead. Besides the whole ghost superhero thing and the not always being totally, 100% there most of the time (literally- though sometimes also figuratively- speaking), he was pretty sure he’d never, ever, _ever_ forget burying his corpse and watching the ghost of his best friend talk to his ghost hunting parents as if there was nothing wrong at all. As if his real body wasn’t stiffening under 6 foot of freshly turned soil barely a stone’s throw from where he stood, as if his arm didn’t disappear when he waved Sam and Tucker goodbye, as if he wasn’t definitely, absolutely dead.

Only it hadn’t been so bad in the end. No one- except maybe that whack kid Weston in sophomore year who stalked Danny for a full semester- had worked it out yet, despite the fact Tucker was pretty sure it was pretty damn obvious if you knew what you were looking at- and given the countless ghosts that haunted Amity Park, he was pretty sure people should be recognising the signs by now. For Pete’s sake, it went so far as that on a particularly sunny day, if Danny was tired, you could see right through him. Like a mirage, at best. That, and as far as Tucker knew, he didn’t have a heartbeat, or maybe even breathe. 

It became a fact of life- or rather, death. The way Sam saw it, this was much easier than Danny trying to inhabit a decaying corpse (as he had initially tried to do), or, even worse, admitting his death to everyone and having to deal with the fallout, not limited to his existence as a ghost, albeit who could make for a very convincing human, and Sam’s slight culpability in his death (which Tucker wasn’t sure whether or not she’d admitted to herself, but he always felt it hanging in the air around them whenever Danny’s death was bought up, as if it were a ghost of its own).

All things considered, though, he hadn’t seen what was coming next, despite the fact that he really should have.

“I think I want to… Y’know. Move on.”

Tucker nearly joined Danny as a ghost as he choked on a bite of Reuben sandwich. An apt reaction perhaps, but it took him nearly a minute of Sam thwacking his back and a few good stares from their classmates before Tucker could catch his breath, by which point the effect was truly overplayed, if not ruined. Danny was scowling at him, arms crossed, as if he could help choking to near death. Tucker daren’t say that though. Touchy subject, death.

Or, it had been.

“You what?” Tucker finally gasped.

“I think I want to move on.” His gaze slid from Tucker incredulous expression to Sam’s hurt one, and he quickly elaborated- “Not right now, I mean, o-or even soon, just… At some point. I know we fight ghosts a lot but I guess, I discovered you can help ghosts move on and I’m just letting you guys know I think that’s something I’d like to do at some point,” Danny finished somewhat awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.

Tucker had known that about ghosts. Danny had mentioned Cujo doing something like that, but the connection had never really been made that that was potentially something Danny could do. Sure, Danny was dead, a ghost, and ghosts moved on eventually if the conditions of their Obsessions were met (Danny had discussed Obsessions at length). But Danny was also… Danny. A halfa, capable of assembling a form close enough to human to pass most doctors’ tests (how, Tucker wasn’t so sure, considering the heartrate thing). Thermos-ing the Box Ghost on occasion was the only hiccup Tucker had ever perceived to Danny living out a long and fulfilling life as a human.

Danny changed his tact. 

“Look, have you ever seen an angel?”

Sam beat Tucker to the mark. “What does that have to do with anything?!”

“Everything. Have you ever seen one?”

“I wanna say you’re crazy because angels don’t exist but you’re wearing that expression that makes me think you know something we don’t and I’m split between letting you speak and punching you.”

“Well, ghosts exist,” Danny smirked, momentarily self-satisfied, and Tucker nearly gave into that urge to punch him, “So why not angels?”

“They’re like, a totally different mythos. There’s paranormal _science_ and then there’s Christianity.”

“Hey, Christianity isn’t the only one with angels, I don’t think. I dunno, don’t quote me on that.” He looked to Sam for an answer, but she just rolled her eyes. “And anyway, yeah, I do know something you don’t. I saw an angel the other day.”

“Do tell,” Tucker leant forward. He was still going for humour, because that’s what he and Danny did, that kind of contrived banter that went for as long as Sam would allow it, but there was a glimmer in his friend’s eyes that seemed so genuine that he was not-so-secretly very interested in what Danny had to say.

“Well, I think I saw a ghost move on. I’m not really sure what I did, I was fighting him and I must’ve done something right because he was holding something just as I was about to Thermos him and then there was all this light, like out of a movie, and then he was an angel. I think? And I know it sounds soppy but it was really beautiful, like a rare and peaceful moment, and. I dunno, being a ghost is OK and I like that I’m not fully dead, I think, but that moment seemed like the missing piece, just for a split second, like I’d found it? It was kind of a really simple decision once I’d felt it.”

“Missing piece? Like a body?” Sam said, and shuffled nervously in her seat. Tucker knew she was thinking about the corpse. Tucker could never get it out of his head at the slightest mention of anything in the semantics of death.

“I mean… I guess maybe.” As if to prove a point, invisibility crept down from the tips of Danny’s fingers towards his palm, before it reached his wrist and the whole hand reappeared as if it’d never been gone. Or really, the whole point was, it’d never really been there.

“The best way I think I can explain it is that… I’m half-dead, a halfa, right? But I’m also half-alive. So when I’m alive, it always feels like there’s a bit of me missing. It might be my body but I can’t ever get that back, or maybe I’m missing some of my soul…” Danny shuddered, “Or, I think, living as a ghost is just kind of this between thing you’re supposed to do and like the endgame for living is death, the endgame for ghosts is a satisfied Obsession.”

“Are you sure? Like, we know some really old ghosts,” Tucker reasoned. He wasn’t sure why he was arguing, given Danny knew this subject far more than he and Sam might ever know, but it seemed like an important decision and Tucker didn’t want it being taken lightly- as Danny was wont to do (Danny himself would agree).

“Yeah, but they’re all…” he gestured a finger towards his temple and drew a circle in the air. “I think that’s what eternity does to you. Or never finding this missing piece. Or both?”

He leant back, and Tucker copied this motion, stretching his arms up behind his back as he thought. Both boys’ attention naturally turned to Sam, who’d been pretty quiet the whole time.

“What’s up, Sam?” Tucker took the hit for Danny. And yet, the tirade never came. Sam simply sighed, avoiding both sets of eyes in favour of looking down at the edge of the table, where she picked absent-mindedly at the rubber.

“It seems like… it seems like a big step, and we don’t know that much about it.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say- I just wanted to tell you both it’s an option I’m considering and I’d like your help to achieve it at some point. I mean, one of us has to go first, and technically, I already did, if you get me, so…”

Like turning a radio down, he trailed off into a thick, enveloping silence that Tucker swore spread negative energy across the canteen like a pebble in a dank pool of water. 

And then, from the depths, came a small voice.

“Please, Sam?”

The part of Tucker Foley that was very much sixteen-years old wanted to say something as his friend looked up to meet his other friend’s eyes, and their hands met over the table, her dark nail polish visible through his fingers.

Then, slowly, a smirk crept across Sam’s face, and spread surprise onto Danny’s.

“Danny James Fenton, what on Earth makes you think they’d make _you_ an angel?”


	6. Bagel

Danny Fenton was soaked, and eating a bagel.

He’d not noticed when it had started raining in his last class. It had been pretty grim all day, casting a shadow over what had been forecasted to be a pretty average September day: no rain, just a sunny disposition and an eagerness for the weekend after a long and tiring week. He wouldn’t even say he’d noticed when he’d launched his hand in the air, peering out the window as a shiver ran through his body, trying desperately to be excused, even though, yes Mr Lancer, he knew very well, it was 6 minutes to the bell but no, Mr Lancer, it could not wait.

It was only until after the bloodied nose and Thermosed Bertrand, followed immediately by the somewhat harder to beat Spectra that he’d realised, somewhere along the lines, it had gotten late and dark and was raining. Heavily.

It was the kind of fat rain that managed to soak even hard to reach places, bouncing off the sidewalk and into his socks as he splashed his way back up to the school (he’d ended up quite far away). No one was around, but the lights were still on, and he was in search of Sam and Tucker, and his backpack, which he’d stupidly (and somewhat cockily) left in Lancer’s classroom. 

He met the man himself in the doorway, fiddling with a set of keys, golf umbrella wedged between his legs. He turned around as he heard Danny squelch up the steps, his surprise lit from above by the harsh porch light that shouldn’t, of a normal September, have even turned on yet.

“ _A Clockwork Orange_ , Mr Fenton, I can’t keep you in my class and now you’re here after hours? I’m locking up.”

“Please, Mr Lancer, I forgot my bag, I’ll be in and out…”

“Can’t do that, Mr Fenton-“

“Please Mr Lancer, I won’t be a second, all my stuff’s in there and it’s the weeken-“

“Slow down. I mean, I can’t let you take your bag because your friends already picked it up for you. They assured me it would be passed on to you with adequate time for you to complete the homework packet I assigned for our Monday afternoon period. Mr Foley and Miss Manson, I’m referring too, of course.”

Danny’s shoulder’s sagged with relief. They sure were a blessing. Plus, this way, his bag wouldn’t get wet- there wasn’t really anything he needed in there, not after he’d broken his cell last week and his parents had refused him a new one, not since it had been his fourth cell since the start of the year.

Mr Lancer seemed to read his mind, because his frown dropped and he seemed to regard his student with something not unlike concern.

“What’s going on, Daniel? You couldn’t wait to get out of my classroom and now you’re back and you’re soaked, and… Is your nose? Is that blood?”

Danny wiped at his nose, having somewhat forgotten it was bleeding- or, rather, it was now, but earlier had been leaking ectoplasm, so what remained on his top lip was a watered-down mix of the two. He went to wipe it off on his shirt but his teacher stopped him.

“Goodness, please, here, I have some tissues,” he signed, dropping his rucksack to the ground and fumbling until he pulled out a travel packet of Kleenex which he handed to Danny, “Keep the packet. How are you getting home?”

“Um…” Probably flying, thought Danny, but no way could he tell Lancer that, “Uh, Jazz is waiting for me round back?”

It was a terrible lie. Sure, Jazz might have stayed late, but surely not this late- she hated to be a burden- and no doubt Mr Lancer would have seen her when he’d passed the library opposite his classroom.

“Are you sure she’ll still be there? It’s nearly 6. I can give you a lift if you want.”

“No, but thanks anyway, I’ll be fine, really.”

“Are you sure?” Mr Lancer seemed insistent, “At least take my umbrella!”

“Makes no difference if I’m already wet!” Danny shouted as he ducked back into the rain from under the porch. “Have a good weekend Mr Lancer!”

He was out of sight before Mr Lancer could protest further- initially only metaphorically, but as soon as he rounded the corner, he let invisibility wash over him, just in case. He leant against the bins as he listened over the rain the sound of keys, and then watched Mr Lancer walk out to his car, the lone one in the lot, besides a van in the corner that never moved because, at some point, it had been clamped, no one ever coming to collect it. No one ever would, Danny bet, not after Dash and his cronies had smashed the driver’s window with a rock.

He'd planned to fly home, but somehow, the moment Lancer’s car left the lot, the willingness to go ghost had waned. Of course it’d be far easier to fly, but he was already wet, and maybe a little melancholic, and some part of him just wanted to watch his shoes squelch as he trudged home in the semi-darkness.

Sam would say it was him being dramatic, but he had no intention of telling Sam.

He did go ghost in the end though, three blocks from FentonWorks when he found himself outside a bodega. His mom didn’t like bodegas, probably somewhat due to her belief that her son was doing drugs out of one or whatever, and had forbidden Danny to enter them (she wasn’t very subtle). Indeed, Danny Fenton had never been inside a bodega, but Danny Phantom, who appeared with a small flash in the alleyway down the side and eased himself into the brick wall, was something of a regular.

Or, maybe not entirely a regular, but enough of one to be greeted by name. 

“Phantom! What a nice surprise!”

“Hi, Mrs Rodriquez, hi John,” he smiled, waving slightly as he slipped through the ceiling, doing a lazy roll in midair before coming to rest in front of the slushie machine, “How are you?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Mrs Rodriquez said, ruffling his hair, while John just stared at him over the screen of a cracked iPad, fiddling with a scab on his ankle. “My sister was over at the weekend, she was talking about you.”

“All good things I hope,” Danny chuckled, and wasn’t really looking for an answer, but Mrs Rodriguez’s face fell.

“Not really, she’s not a fan. I tried to convince her, say you’d been here in the shop and saved Señor Rodriquez’s life, but you know what some people can be like,” she huffed, and Danny sensed there was more to it. “Her little girl Anya though, she’s a big fan, I showed her the photo we took last time. Such a nice girl,” she smiled. “Shame you’re a ghost, or she’d make a good girlfriend for you, eh?”

Danny wasn’t sure how he felt about being set-up, but Mrs Rodriguez meant well.

All the same, he diverted the conversation elsewhere.

“Ahaha… Hey, Mrs Rodriguez, I know it’s late but I don’t suppose you’re still doing sandwiches are you?”

“Ah, yes the hungry ghost… Have you beaten lots of other ghosts today?”

“I guess.” Mrs Rodriguez didn’t want to hear how it’d taken him almost four hours to take down two ghosts, nor did he want to admit it, so simply concluded, “Mostly the weather takes it out of you, it’s raining really hard.”

“Ah, I haven’t seen, I’ve been down here all day. Come, what fillings do you want mijo?”

She made him a bagel with cheese and salami, the thick, greasy kind that Tucker would be proud of. He barely needed to pretend to fumble in the pouch on his utility belt for change he knew he didn’t have before she waved him off.

“On the house. You do enough for this city as is, it’s the least we can do, right John?”

John looked up from the Ipad for a moment, returning Danny’s smile with a crooked grin of his own. “Si, Abuela.”

It was no secret Danny had a soft spot for gaining the acceptance of children, a tinge of embarrassment rising in his cheeks as he accepted the wrapped bagel.

“Gracias, Mrs Rodriguez, John. I’ll… I’ll see you around, thank you so much.”

“Keep doing what you do Phantom, it makes a difference to this town, and you should come more often, you look like you need feeding up. I’m always happy to make you a sandwich.”

“Thanks Mrs Rodriguez, I… It means a lot, really.”

It felt a bit lacklustre, and he hid his embarrassment by slipping through the ceiling with a wave, returning to the rainy alley, where the cold and loud wail of a police siren nearby overwhelmed him momentarily. He made no ripple in the murky puddle he touched down in, and watched the rain go through his feet as he absentmindedly unwrapped the bagel, before shoving it gratefully in his mouth.

The mouthful of steaming cheese and butter and dough and slightly sweaty meat would have made it all worth it, only he had the supportive words of Mrs Rodriguez and her grandson ringing in his mind too, and couldn’t help well with appreciation. Maybe this was what life- or in his case, half-life- was about. Little moments of human connection, of gratitude, of hot bagels in the pouring rain.

As if intent on proving him otherwise, something hit him in the side of the head.

“Ow! How can-“

“Danny!” came a shout, and two faces of relief followed a series of splashes.

“You’re OK! Where have you been?” Danny couldn’t tell if Sam was concerned or annoyed, her bangs hiding her expression as she bent to retrieve the Booomerang.

“That smells amazing,” Tucker remarked. Danny proffered it to him, offering a bite, but Tucker waved it away. “It’s alright, it’s yours dude.”

“Where did you get it?”

Danny pointed at the backlit sign above him, which Sam and Tucker squinted to read.

“I thought your Mom doesn’t like these kinds of places?”

“My Mom doesn’t like Danny Phantom either,” Danny shrugged, taking another bite. “Anyway, Mrs Rodriguez is cool.”

“How did you pay for it? Your bag’s at mine, I was worried because Jazz and your mom called and your mom’s mad and you didn’t have your wallet or anything and it’s not like I could call you,” Sam rolled her eyes.

“Like I said, Mrs Rodriguez is cool.”

“Danny, you shouldn’t accept stuff like that, it’s-“

“Jeez Sam, lay off. I’m sorry I made you guys worry but it took like three hours to Thermos Bertrand and Spectra and I went all the way back to the school to find everyone had already left. And, y’know, I was hungry.”

Sam scowled at him, and Tucker tensed, sensing a storm brewing that had nothing to do with the rain. However, after a moment, the expression dropped and she dragged a weary hand down her face, before staring dully at the makeup smudged onto her hand.

“I’m sorry Danny, I was just… I was worried. It’s been a long week.”

“I know.” 

Unwillingly to leave the alley for the moment (at least until he’d finished his bagel), he squatted next to the bin with his back against the wall, chewing thoughtfully as he watched his friends stare down at him. Tucker joined him first, then Sam, and he pulled them both close next to him and spread his intangibility over them, Tucker grinning as his dried hair puffed up.

He stared up at the rain, watching it drip from the gutter, sheets of it illuminated by the bodega sign but falling straight through his face.

“It feels strange seeing the rain but not feeling it. Don’t you… feel weird that you don’t like… exist?”

“Sometimes it’s nice to go unnoticed by the world,” Danny replied. “And it lets you appreciate the small things when they are there.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, not really.”

“Not really?” Tucker chimed in.

“Lancer said I had a bloody nose but I think it’s gone? I don’t know, I don’t feel it. Are you guys OK?”

“Yeah, we didn’t run into anything. Just worried, was all. The other night was… It’s not like it’s the first time but it was still scary.”

"I know.”

“Dumb that your mom is hassling you for not being home at 6 but she didn’t notice you missing curfew because you were bleeding out.”

Danny flinched. “Yeah, about that…” he swallowed a bite of his bagel. “Can I come round? I don’t really… feel like going home.”

“Danny…”

“C’mon Sam. You said it yourself, it’s been a long week. Let’s just… hang out. Be us. This bagel put me in a kinda good mood despite everything and I’m not about to have it ruined.”

“It’ll just make it worse with your parents Danny.”

“It’s not like it’s ever gonna get any better.” Sam looked ready to protest, but Tucker interrupted.

“I’m with Danny. I vote we find a huge blanket, all get under it and watch some stupid comedy that has nothing to do with ghosts or school or blood or hospitals.”

“Tucker speaks my language. Here, finish this, I know you want to.”

“And you speak mine,” Tucker grinned, accepting the bagel this time. He finished the remainder, now soggy and lukewarm, in a single bite.

“Fine. But your mom rang the landline and my mom picked up so you’ll have to come through the window, though I think my parents are supposed to be going out tonight…”

“Thanks Sam.”

“It’s cool. It’s nice to know where you are, for definite.”

“I owe you guys. If I have any money in my wallet, I’ll buy us pizza. If I don’t, I’ll go ghost and flutter my eyelids a bit…”

“Danny!” Sam hit him lightly on the arm.

“Just kidding,” he smiled, getting up. He wondered if Sam and Tucker knew how much their expressions gave away as they mirrored his smile, with a glimmer of tender fondness on their slightly damp faces. Maybe trudging round in the rain made you a little sentimental. Or, more likely, they were as tired as he was.

“Ready?” he said, and despite the rain, despite the fatigue and the worry and the guilt, he cherished the moment where he held his two friends close and gave one last smile at the bodega sign before taking off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vaguely inspired by spiderman: homecoming which i saw twice and liked a lot, nd the idea of a friendly neighbourhood phantom would be neat too.
> 
> also it was a very wet summer and i stood out in the rain a lot!
> 
> if you're ever in south london, bagel king in walworth is open 24hrs and does the best cheese and salami bagel. also i know bodegas aren't really an illinois thing so much but i feel like any corner store with a deli counter, especially in a basement, is a bodega, ahah.


	7. Hero(ine)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more Jazz and Danny content. Kinda feel like the ending is a little lacklustre but I always knew this idea was far from perfect which is why it's in the drabble collection despite its length, ahah. The focus was originally meant to be on underappreciated female friendship and Jazz's own heroism but it got a little mixed up along the way i think.
> 
> Tw for needles, blood, child abuse, very unresearched medical stuff, allusions to dysphoria, etc
> 
> Also, comments are nice if ur so obliged! I'm terrible at replying to them but i appreciate them all the same :0

She was no hero. 

In fact, sometimes she wondered how Danny did it. She may not always be there to watch the fights but she surely saw the light fade from his eyes as the months went by, the rolls of gauze he went through, the dropping grades, the missed curfews and the small, vulnerable form he cut as their parents berated him for it all. He got next to nothing out of it and she couldn’t see a motivation strong enough in the world that could get her to do what he did, day in, day out, not even when he tried to explain Obsessions to her. 

She was no hero. That said, she liked to think she could step in and do the right thing, if it came to it.

They say in situations like that, life and death situations, all heroism, all morality, all lofty ideals go out the window and you’re left with primal instincts. Primal was certainly the word for it. If she’d caught a look at herself in a mirror in that moment, she might have been scared of her reflection: teeth bared, hair ragged and matted with ectoplasm, almost snarling. But she didn’t give a damn. Bleeding brother clasped to her chest in one hand, ectogun in the other, she had one objective.

Save his life, consequences be damned.

Her parents knew the ectogun couldn’t hurt them. Sure, purified ectoplasm burnt a bit, but it wasn’t anything a bit of cold water and cling film couldn’t fix. She wondered if they’d let her take him because deep down, they knew that was their son, they just didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to look at the limp figure drenched in ectoplasm and admit they’d deeply wronged their own child.

Later, she’d remember how she’d become hypersensitive to just how many weapons were surrounding them, just how many ways her brother could finish dying. There were guns strapped to the wall, strewn on workbenches, scalpels and scissors on a tray on the floor, an ectogun at her mum’s hip and one in her dad’s hand. She liked to think she could step in and do the right thing, if it came to it, and yet she’d never considered all this a real enough threat until she could feel ectoplasm congealing under her fingers.

The thermos was actually a smart idea. She supposed they didn’t normally use it on Danny because it tended to hold other ghosts, and because he didn’t like it, but right now she couldn’t carry him up the basement stairs by herself without turning her back on her parents, and no way was she doing that, not after the kicking and biting and punching it had taken to rescue him from their clutches in the first place.

With barely a whispered apology slipping through her gritted teeth, grabbed it and twisted off the cap, struggling as her hands slipped from the ectoplasm, which, she noticed, was slowly turning a deep red. Light exploded in their faces, and weight was lifted from her arms. She wasted no time jamming the top back on with force and sprinting up the stairs, two at a time, her mum’s protests and her dad’s roars echoing in her ears.

Her legs took her to her car, where she tossed the thermos into the passenger seat and barely shut the door before her parents were out in the night. The silence of 2am suburbs was disrupted with the screech of tyres and a cry of anger, and the only neighbour who’d got to the window in time could only watch in horror as Jack Fenton narrowly missed being run down by his own daughter as he attempted to blockade the driveway with his bulk.

Once the glow of their kitchen on the street had disappeared from her rear-view mirror, she released a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and looked down at the thermos. As she drove, the oppressive quiet of the streets brought her back down to earth and she began to hear the blood pumping in her ears.

What had she done?

Part of her had always known it would come to this. Danny had told her about alternate timelines where their parents had accepted him and held him tightly as they told him they were proud of him. Unwilling to wipe the quiet satisfaction from her little brother’s face, Jazz had just smiled and nodded. In those timelines, he’d never left it years to tell them. He’d never watched them fester over the ghost boy the town fell in love with, the son who couldn’t get anything right, the equipment that was always bettered somewhere else or stolen before it was patented. He’d never tried to tell them when he was caught, oozing ectoplasm in his side and fighting against a heavy net as he cried in desperation for his mother, whose face (and resolve) would only ever harden.

Maybe telling him that would have been the right thing to do. But it would have put them in the same position, runaways in the dead of night, on half a tank of gas and no plan.

Her first priority was Danny. If Danny worsened, that was it, it was all for nothing and she’d lose the person she was closest to in the world. She had no idea if the thermos kept him from bleeding out, but she was pretty sure he’d have to be in some kind of gaseous form to fit in there, so she hoped for the best.

Hospital was out, and she had no phone. However, it was the middle of the night. The people who could help her could only be in one place.

The Manson’s porchlight was on but she daren’t knock, even if this was definitely an emergency. She’d always thought love stories where they threw rocks at windows were dumb, but heck, it worked to get her brother’s girlfriend to come to the window in the dead of night, and it wasn’t actually that hard to aim- she’d gotten her attention after only a few hits to the pane.

“Jazz!”

“Sam, I- I need first aid stuff, and Ecto-Dejecto, if you have it.” She could almost see Sam’s eyes widen from down on the street. “The… The worst has happened. M-Mom and Dad, they…”

“Oh crap. OK,” she disappeared from the window for an agonising amount of time. She hadn’t expected the explanation to be that easy. Over the sound of her heartbeat and the distant yowl of a cat, she swore she could hear the Fenton RV’s unmistakable rattly engine echoing some streets away. She strained to hear, but was torn from her concentration by a slight whipping sound, and turned to see Sam throwing a rope ladder down from the first floor. She was wearing her pyjamas and no make-up but curiously had a stuffed backpack. 

“We planned for this, I guess. Kinda. Not this this, but… something,” she muttered, as if reading Jazz’s mind. 

As Jazz went around to get back into the driver’s seat, she noticed Sam pause to check the backseat (where Jazz noticed she had a blanket, which she supposed would come in useful later), and whispered, “Thermos on the front seat,” over the roof of the car. Sam gave an audible gasp, and, as if on cue, a siren fired up on the next street. 

“The ghost siren?” Sam exclaimed, no longer bothering to whisper now. The fear was evident on her face: the siren was only for use on major ghost-related events and invasions, but the Fentons had their own trigger for it, as did City Hall, the GIW, and the police department.

“Get in,” Jazz urged, and Sam needed no more ushering, throwing the bag behind her as she clambered into the front seat, taking more care than Jazz had with the thermos containing her boyfriend.

“What now?” Jazz said as she fumbled with the keys. 

“Drive,” Sam said, staring straight ahead. “My parents will be up in a minute and then so will yours. We want out of city limits, and then preferably the state too. Take a right at the top of the road. Go!”

Jazz didn’t need to be told twice.

“The thermos keeps Danny’s condition from escalating too much but losing consciousness for an extended period of time in the thermos can mean it’s hard to get him out and reformed.” She projected her voice over the sounds of the sirens, staring dead ahead, clutching the thermos so tightly her knuckles were white. “As soon as we get to somewhere safe, we have to open it. I have two first aid kits and all the Ecto-Dejecto I own, which is like, three vials I think. And some sterilised needles, obviously. I also have cash, though I wish I had a sweater.”

“There’s a blanket on the backseat if you can reach it,” Jazz pointed out, and regretted how much she veered round a corner as Sam reached back to grab it, nearly rolling into her.

And so she drove. She’d expected it to be harder somehow. Despite how mad they were, she’d thought her parents were at least something of a respected force in Amity Park, but clearly not enough to have the full force of the law on their side when they needed it. There were no blockades, no helicopters, no chase, just the ever-quietening ring of sirens as Jazz headed for the highway.

She didn’t let a false sense of security put her off, even as the sky turned grey and Sam began to doze off in her periphery, thermos now clasped to her chest like some kind of unorthodox teddy bear. 

She was glad of Sam. If she was going to high-tail it out of the state from crazed parents with anyone, she was glad it was her. Somewhere along the lines, Danny’s friends had become her friends too, and Sam seemed aware of that, comfortable in Jazz’s presence and in their silence as the car raced through the dawn.

The fact Sam perked up once they passed the state line only proved this further, and she watched Sam’s eyes scan for somewhere to stop.

“You think a layby or a gas station?” Jazz asked.

“Gas station if we can find one, they’ll probably have toilets we can use and they’re not that nosy out here, if there’s even anyone around at this time of day,” she noted, ducking her head to look out at the sky, where, as if to validate her point, orange hues teased a charcoal horizon.

“What kind of state’s he in, anyway?” Sam asked, and Jazz stole a look at her, almost forgetting what they were there for. Of course she’d been worried about Danny, but the lack of sleep and the single-minded goal of getting them out of Illinois has muddled her brain and it became had to believe through her headache that once they opened that thermos, she’d have to face the same horror she felt she’d been running from, this time on the backseat of her car.

“I… I dunno, just. I don’t know what happened, besides the fight that broke out after I got there, I came back to find him like that and there was so much… ectoplasm, I couldn’t work out what was wrong to start with but oh god Sam, there was so much… I just…” Jazz could feel panic rising in her chest just thinking about it. “Oh my god,” she added, and Sam looked up to see an average, if not very empty gas station turn up just as they neared some crossroads. Jazz, breathing quickly now, took a sharp turn and somehow parked them by the trees at the corner of the lot without bursting a tire or doing any damage to the car besides a slight knock to the bumper.

“Breathe, Jazz,” Sam urged, and leant over to shut off the engine. “Look, get out the car, another minute or so isn’t going to hurt Danny now. Catch your breath. We’re safe now.”

Jazz did as she said, almost on automatic, pacing out to the middle of the empty lot and gulping the icy morning air.

She hated the word hysteria- it came from the Greek word _hustera_ , meaning “womb”; a word designed to belittle and trivialise the emotions of women. That said, she’d take hysteria over a full anxiety attack any day. Thankfully, she managed to get her breathing under control, pacing up and down the asphalt, head in her hands, screwing her eyes shut every time she remembered something bad and replacing it with the stillness of the middle of nowhere, a bird in the trees above her singing a dawn song, the sound of running water somewhere close by. 

She was no hero, but she’d made this decision, and she had to deal with what it threw at her.

She turned to look at the car. Through her fatigue and the slight burning sensation it brought around the rims of her eyes, she had to appreciate how ridiculous the whole thing was, at least before things got too real again. She’d really done that: run away from home totally empty handed, stopping only to semi-abduct a teenager from her bed. Now here they were, two white girls and a tiny car in a deserted gas station at the break of dawn, Sam still in her pyjamas as she laid a blanket down over the back seat. Indeed, Jazz might have been wearing jeans and a cardi, but she was covered in what now definitely looked like dried blood, some of it crusted in her hair to boot.

None of it was optimal, but she was again reminded of how blessed she was to have Sam by her side as the younger girl heaved the rucksack down onto the seat and wrenched apart the zipper, revealing a wealth of medical supplies.

“You OK?” she asked as she noticed Jazz’s return. Jazz only nodded, but it must have been enough for Sam, as she held out an unopened packet of gauze. “How do you wanna do this?”

“I…” There was nothing she wanted to avoid more than having to face the contents of that thermos, but in the same breath, she needed to put this right, to save her baby brother. She screwed up her face as she tried to remember what his wounds were like. “I figured it was a dissection, so his wounds will be clean but deep, but someone…” she looked down at a burn on her arm she’d only just thought to notice, “Someone fired and it hit both of us.” The ectogun would cause far greater damage to Danny, particularly if it was the Fentons’ newer blend of purified ectoplasm and, they reckoned, blood blossom extract.

“So, Ecto-Dejecto, stitches, and then wrap?”

“Wouldn’t he have internal bleeding? Oh, Sam, I don’t know if we can do this…”

“Sure we can Jazz. Look, you mean the world to Danny and he I believes in you. I believe in you. We can do this. Your… Your parents are good scientists, if nothing else, so I’m guessing they would have gone for a Y-incision and not nicked any major organs, supposing Danny has organs as a ghost. I think he does. I don’t know, repairing the wound is the best we can do. He needs you for this Jazz. You with me?”

That wasn’t the way it was meant to be. Jazz wasn’t a hero.

“We can do this Jazz. Look, you hold him and I’ll do the stitches? I’ll need you to concentrate though, you’re not scared of blood are you?"

Sam was always so sure of herself. Jazz originally had thought it to be a weakness- particularly when they’d first been introduced, she was so hot-headed and stuck far too closely to a narrow set of morals. She’d wondered what her mellow brother saw in Sam. Their relationship had been one of the first things to come to mind when she discovered Danny’s secret- where else would such black and white morality come from? 

Over time though, she’d discovered that side of him had never come from her; rather, his innate if not confused desire to do good was what had attracted them to each other in the first place. 

She was glad Sam had seen that in her brother. Jazz was supposed to be the psychologist, but she’d taken far longer to cop on to Danny’s sense of justice and when she discovered where he’d gone with it and what he’d done, she was glad he’d met Sam. And that feeling had never faded. If anything, it was stronger than it had ever been, as she held Sam’s gaze as she clutched the thermos, an unspoken understanding passing between the two.

There was an almost comical squeak as she twisted off the lid, and a sort of grey misted poured out. Horror settled in her stomach as she suddenly wondered if they were too late, if she’d not driven fast enough or spent too long panicking and now he couldn’t reform. For a moment, she could only watch as the mist swirled over the back-seat of her car. If she looked back, with the benefit of hindsight, it might have been a peaceful, even eerily beautiful happening.

As ever, Sam seemed to have more faith than her, reaching down into the rucksack to pick out a sterilised needle, scissors and vial of Ecto-Dejecto. Passing the scissors to Jazz without comment, she filled the needle with ease, as if she’d done this a thousand times before. She probably had, Jazz thought, as she flicked the plastic, before her gaze returned to the backseat, where, slowly, the sentient mist was being replaced with something only mildly less horrifying.

“Danny?” Jazz exclaimed, and when there was no response, she found herself jumping into the backseat. By his head in the doorway, Sam checked his breathing and airway (Jazz could only trust that was relevant to a ghost) while Jazz found a position straddling her brother’s legs, where she had a better vantage point removing the glove on his right hand and cutting up his sleeve. Most of the front of his suit was open and to Jazz’s disgust, his favourite binder too, but they needed less restriction and access to his back so they could wrap the wounds once they were sewn up.

“Danny? It’s me, Sam, and Jazz is here too. Can you hear me?” Jazz was getting used to this particular tone of Sam’s, the authority she was used to mixed with a hint of concern, and of course, though she may not admit it, fear. Always fear. 

After a moment, there was a slight groan, and Jazz had never been so glad to see that distinct green glow under his eyelashes as his eyes cracked open the tinest bit. Sam’s expression softened and she kissed his forehead before wiping her eyes.

There had been a while where Jazz, like her parents, had been a little cautious of Sam. Danny had been friends with Tucker since forever, and they were pretty alike in most ways, content to build Lego and play video games and laugh loudly, and then suddenly, there was a new dynamic. Sam bought intellect and a sort of emotional storm and the moment her clunky boots crossed the threshold into the Fenton household, Jazz could feel something brewing. At the time, the unapologetic self-expression and the tendency to rebel against anything (sometimes just for the sake of it), paired with Danny and Tucker’s naivety saw Jazz looking at Sam like she was trouble incarnate. As it happened, what she could smell brewing was the coming of maturity for the trio, as well as possibly oxytocin. 

She liked that she’d been wrong. Sure, she missed how happy, boisterous, and carefree Danny and Tucker had been when it was just them, but it was never going to stay like that. It’d be nice to undo Danny’s accident and the proceeding problems, not least this right there, on the backseat of her car, but the sight of Sam smiling sadly down at Danny, an intimate moment she felt close enough to the two of them not to feel like she was intruding on by being there, made her glad some things turned out the way they did.

A sudden cry of pain bought Jazz back down to Earth.

“OK Danny, I know, it hurts. Can you sit up? Jazz can help you.” Sam nodded at Jazz, who, ever so carefully, leant forward to sit Danny up. He may have been somewhat awake and he’d yet to revert back to human, but he was still limp for the most part, and his head was heavy on her shoulder. Sam used one of the sleeve cuttings to make a tourniquet, before injecting Danny with a kind of expert precision that unnerved Jazz in a sixteen-year-old. 

“OK Danny, all done.” Danny, for his part, gave a pained groan in reply, tensing his free hand on Sam’s shirt and panting a little, as if to stop from screaming.

“Have you got any painkillers?” Jazz tried not to seem demanding, aware enough how stressed Sam was getting, though she may pretend otherwise, but to her surprise, her voice came out meek and shaky. Sam fretted momentarily, as if she hadn’t thought of it, before calming herself and fumbling in the bag once again.

“Here,” Sam proferred two boxes. “I meant to get, um, some kinda narcotics or something, something a little stronger, uh, even with my parents…”

“This is fine, Sam. Have you got any water?”

“Um… Danny can dry-swallow…” Jazz took that as a no. 

For a moment, Jazz forgot herself, intently watching Sam’s hands shake as she fumbled with the blisters of pills until there was a blinding flash around Danny’s waist.

“NO, DANNY!” Sam roared, giving him a rather almighty slap round the face that made Jazz wince. Sam looked sorry the minute her hand made contact, but it did the trick it seemed, as Danny coughed and the light disappeared.

“Clockwork help me Danny, don’t you DARE do that again. Jazz, switch sides, my hands are shaking too much for this shit, I’m doing the damn stitches.”

Jazz didn’t question it until she’d run round the back of the car, retrieved the pills and lifted Danny’s head up to get him to swallow them.

“Are you going to be able to do that if your hands are shaking?” Jazz asked quietly, and in response, Sam held up the surgical needle she’d already threaded. Danny may be a ghost, but Sam was an angel.

“Has he swallowed them?”

“Hey Danny,” Jazz said softly, bending over his face. The only indication he was alive was the slight swaying her hair made near his nose from his breath, at least until she nudged him and his face contorted with pain. Biting her lip, she stripped off her cardi to use as a pillow and propped him up into an almost sitting position despite his protests, before craning over him again.

“Open your mouth Danny.” When he didn’t respond, she continued, “Sorry for this Danny,” and forced his mouth open. She momentarily wondered why she’d never noticed his enlarged incisors before, but focused more on the lack of pills on the back of his tongue.

“He swallowed them.”

“Good. I think the Ecto-Dejecto is just kicking in, the wounds look better already and I haven’t even touched them.”

She worked quietly and with confidence, while Jazz could do nothing but support Danny’s head on her collarbone, holding his arms to stop him squirming and trying to ignore when he cried out. The painkillers (an overdose, though that was the least of Jazz’s worries) clearly kicked in after a few minutes, which was faster than Jazz expected, and Danny’s protests died down. She stroked his hair absent-mindedly, watching Sam with intensity as she worked.

“All done,” Sam exhaled. She sat back, observing Danny’s slight form, his face framed in a shock of Jazz’s ginger hair flowing over his shoulders, before meeting the other girl’s eyes. Her steely resolve seemed to melt away under Jazz’s unassuming gaze, and the next thing she knew, the younger girl was crying.

“Sam…”

“Look at him, Jazz! How did… Why! It shouldn’t be this way! What the fuck…”

“Sam, Sam…” Jazz didn’t know what to do, still holding Danny, who was vaguely conscious given he’d yet to revert to human, but apparently not particularly lucid. Fat tears rolled down Sam’s flushed cheeks. Jazz could see it- they were all three of them covered in blood, Danny half-naked on his sister’s lap, Jazz so tired she could barely see straight and Sam flushed and shaking as she tried to control her tears, while all the while a bitter chill blew through the cramped backseat.

Danny was the hero, not them. Things shouldn’t be like this. And yet…

Careful not to jostle Danny too much, she lifted herself from the seat and pulled the blanket out from underneath them. To hell with her seats, she thought. She then sat back down, adjacent to Danny this time, so she could close her door and prop him up on left shoulder and let the rest of him fall into her lap. She gestured at Sam to do the same, sitting underneath Danny’s legs, and the minute she closed the other door, everything went quieter and calmer, and Sam breathed a shuddering sigh.

She passed Sam the blanket and gave her a stern look until the other girl draped it over her and Danny. 

Jazz had intended to wrap Danny’s wounds, but as she began to quietly and tenderly clean the blood off with wipes from Sam’s bag, she was surprised to see his wound healing before her eyes. It was weirdly beautiful, watching glowing skin knit itself together like that. How her parents had seen a creature such as Danny and their first instinct be to destroy him, she would never understand.

Only it wasn’t instinct. That impossibly straight line down Danny’s chest, the one Jazz was watching heal, was calculated-

“Jazz?”

Danny’s echoey voice cut her from her train of thought.

“Danny!” she smiled, and looked over at Sam for a reaction, only to see she’d already fallen asleep, leant over Danny’s legs. Danny followed her gaze, a soft smile seeming alien on his features, until his gaze slipped to his chest and twisted into disgust.

“Gross.”

“Sam did a good job,” Jazz replied lamely, pretending Danny was only referring to the wound and not his exposed chest. “You can have the blanket once I’ve finished cleaning the blood.” She gave him a pointed look. “Don’t look if you don’t like it.”

“Ok,” Danny mumbled, choosing to look up out the window. “Makes it weird… watching you… anyway.”

“You nearly bled to death on my backseat and you’re worried about making it weird?”

“Not a big deal. I bleed out… often.”

“Sam seemed worried enough,” she said without thinking, before inwardly berating herself. That was the last thing Danny wanted to hear. As testament to such, his hand tensed, and she refused to turn and look at him to see him crying, instead reaching to hold his hand and focusing on wiping up the impossible amount of blood on his torso.

They stayed like that for a while, Jazz listening to Danny’s sniff and Sam’s soft breathing for a while. She could see how Sam got so overwhelmed. She was keeping it together only out of necessity- Sam had covered her earlier, now it was her turn to cover Sam, whether or not her eyes were screaming to close and her arms begging to relax.

Danny’s voice was hoarse when he next spoke.

“Where are we?”

“Iowa. I wanted to… go towards Vlad’s, but not the route Mo- uh, not the normal route. If that’s OK with you.”

“Vlad’s is fine, though I’m not sure he’s in the country.”

“That’s probably for the best, knowing you and him,” she forced a smile, and finally turned back to him, where he reflected her expression with watery eyes.

“I’m all done, unless you want me to wrap it, but it’s healing pretty quickly.”

“No, it’s good,” he said as she tugged the edge of the blanket gently from Sam so it reached up over both their shoulders. “Thanks a lot Jazz.”

“No problem. Sorry it’s so cold.”

“I mean, thanks Jazzy. For everything. I never meant for it to… to turn out like this.”

“Shh, Danny.” She stroked his hair, trying her best to ignore the blood matted into his bangs, and watched him close his eyes. “You don’t need to apologise, little brother. I’m sorry it got like this too, but it’s not your fault and I can only thank our lucky stars we got out of there OK.”

“It was all you though.”

“And Sam.”

“And Sam. You’re my heroes.” 

“Heroines.”

“Yeah, that,” Danny mumbled, barely audible. Jazz pressed a kiss to his forehead before finally allowing herself to settle into the seat, clutching Danny close under the blanket and slipping into a dreamless sleep.


	8. Fire

“Hey fruitloop, do you think I’m dead?”

It hadn’t meant to come out as melancholy as it sounded. Really, he was just voicing his thoughts, his fatigue from a long day of school and ghosts made worse by the comforting warmth of Vlad’s open fire, but Vlad gave him a concerned look, probably as close as he would ever get to genuine paternity.

“My dear boy, you look pretty alive to me.”

A flash of white light and a cold, acid green stare later, and Vlad sighed.

“Is that what you came to talk about?”

Of course it hadn’t been, but Danny had no intentions of telling the older halfa the real reason he was currently floating in front of his hearth, purring quietly with contentment. They were arch-enemies, and a large part of Danny wanted it to stay that way- for ease mostly, though it didn’t feel so easy sometimes. The other part of him- the part that had never forgotten Vlad’s Deathday from his escapades in the eighties, the part that turned down a movie night with Sam and Tucker to sit in front of a fire with an old man, the part that really desperately wanted to connect with the only other person in the world who could grasp his unique state of existence- wasn’t so sure.

When he didn’t answer beyond a non-committal shrug, Vlad regarded him with suspicion. Danny didn’t care. He’d rather suspicious, scheming Vlad than the Vlad he’d seen when he’d floated through his study earlier, invisible. He’d seemed so small, and was nursing a whiskey, or a brandy, or whatever they drank in old films- Danny knew nothing about alcohol. Besides, that was the first time he’d ever seen Vlad drink. He’d never seemed the type.

He’d initially wondered if Vlad had known why he was there. He figured he’d have an alert system for ghostly presences, but then, it was just Vlad’s complexity that his own sense of privacy when it came to his ghost in his own home outweighed his desire to track and control other ghosts. It was scraps of information like that, and the sight of Vlad on his arrival, that made him wonder if one day, moments of trust like this one would become a more common occurrence.

Or perhaps not.

“Daniel, you can’t just barge in here uninvited and then refuse to talk to me. If you have no reasoning for being here then I have other matters more pressing than babysitting to attend to.”

“Aw, c’mon V-Man, don’t be like that.” He’d meant it in jest, but Vlad’s face hardened at the nickname and Danny inwardly cringed, making a note to avoid that, if only for a night. “I know you have nothing better to do. Or maybe you do, but it’s Friday night, you’re allowed some time off from scheming or whatever,” he teased, but made sure there was a softness- a fondness even- to his voice, that even a closed-off old man like Vladimir Masters could pick up on. Sure enough, his face uncreased, and he leant back in his chair, watching Danny’s tail flick lazily.

“Then, don’t _you_ have better things to be doing on a Friday night?”

“Nah.” It wasn’t a lie, not really. It was all about priorities.

“Loath though I am to ask, won’t your parents be wondering where you are?”

Danny barked a harsh laugh before he could stop himself, forgetting where he was and what he was there to achieve. Asking airy questions about his ghostliness he knew neither of them had the answers to was one thing, but bringing emphasis to the one thing that made Vlad bitter?

He was screwing this up. He’d come here to distract him, if not make him feel better, and right now he was giving Danny a look that implied that he wasn’t going to let it go, not a second time.

“Sorry, I mean… They’re great and all, but they’re not the most attentive.”

He wouldn’t say he felt like he was walking on eggshells, not least because he was floating, but it was something like that. There was a stiffness in the room, as if it were only a matter of time before Vlad snapped back to his normal, embittered self. And then, Vlad sighed, as if in defeat, and nodded slightly. Danny hadn’t been expecting that.

“What, no “Your mother knows what’s best for you” or “Yes, your father sure is a buffoon”?” he imitated, cringing again as his mouth got ahead of him.

“Oh, come off it Daniel, we both know why we’re here. I love your mother to pieces and gouda knows I’ll never be able to change that, but even I can admit when they’ve been less than stellar parents, or indeed, friends.”

Danny’s purring stopped. He hadn’t meant it to, not intentionally, but it had, his Core weighed down by dread. He swallowed the feeling, and it slid down to settle back in his stomach. He was used to it there, but tonight, it felt different.

“I know you think I was bitter for twenty years before I was reunited with your parents, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but it’s too much effort to really hold a grudge for that long. It’s longer than you’ve been alive, Daniel. Anger is an ephemeral state of being, it doesn’t last that long- you and your short-temper should know that. Think about it- I may admit I like my, as you call it, “scheming”, but if I’d have been that enraged I wouldn’t have waited two decades to exact my revenge.”

Danny hadn’t come to listen to another one of Vlad’s self-piteous rants, but this one seemed different somehow, so he let Vlad continue.

“My intentions in Wisconsin at the reunion had only ever been to rub their noses in my success, and, best case scenario, win back your mother’s heart, even if only as a friend. But then you stumbled into things, a naïve teen in an ill-fitting suit and, more importantly, you were another hybrid resulting from your parents’ carelessness with their profession-”

“Wait, that’s not fair Vlad, my accident was my fault-”

“If anything,” Vlad spoke without raising his voice, but with a firmness that stopped Danny’s interruption in its tracks, “Your “accident” was less your fault than mine was. I was a trained scientist, and I should have been used to your father’s buffoonery enough to know not to stand that close to an experiment he’d had a hand in. You, on the other hand, were a mere child, who had and to my bafflement, continues to have access to dangerous scientific equipment and weaponry. In answer to your earlier question- I don’t know if you’re strictly dead at present but I suspect you did die in that portal, if the effect of its energy blast was anything like the one I received to my face only. Not least, the fact your powers are developing, from what I can tell, much more smoothly and quicker than my own, would be a testament to the stability of your ghost half.”

To say Danny had become uncomfortable was an understatement. Vlad’s candid talk about Phantom, and more importantly, the depth with which he seemed to have considered a question that had only recently occurred to Danny, unnerved him.

He’d known he’d died. In a very deep, primal way, he just knew- that thrum of life, the heat, the movement, the _reality_ of it, was gone. He couldn’t really explain it, and if he tried, he wasn’t sure anyone would believe him, but he just knew. Anyone, that was, besides Sam and Tucker, who’d been there and heard his scream echo around the cold basement laboratory. 

Vlad was always professing to be the only one who truly understood Danny, but had never given him any reason to believe him until now. Of course, there was a possibility all this was all part of that exact ploy, but Danny didn’t think he’d be as thrown as he was right then if that were the case. It was too much, too sudden, and Vlad may have been smart, but he couldn’t have held that back for the past few years if had occurred to him earlier.

“I didn’t realise it at the time,” Vlad continued, quieter now, as if telling him a secret; Danny supposed he was, “But it wasn’t you coming in with your ego and messing up my plans that really angered me. I’ve told you before that seeing you, another halfa, birthed of your parents’ carelessness and callousness, brought all my previous resentment back to me. What I don’t think I realised was how angry I was on your behalf. It got mixed up in everything somehow, and it was easy to resent you because you still had people to support you- and, of course, you are the result of a relationship I never wanted to see succeed- but the thought of someone else having to go through what I went through, albeit without the traumatising years of ecto-acne, and at such a young age- is an injustice, to put it lightly. And it baffles me Daniel,” he sighed, and paused for a moment, before downing the remnants of his glass, “It baffles me that the most you won’t even admit to yourself that they might have some culpability in what was essentially your death, let alone what they continue to put your human and ghost sides through.”

“It was an accident, Vlad, they weren’t to have known their stupid son would wander into a-”

“They put the “on” switch on the inside, did they not?”

“Yeah, sure, that’s dumb, but not with the intention that I’d think to turn it on from the inside-”

“Is that not what an “on” switch is for?”

Danny didn’t know what Vlad was getting out of having him admit his parents were in the wrong, but his insistence and the fact the topic itself was still highly uncomfortable to discuss was getting him riled up.

“You’ll understand when you’re older, Daniel. You’re a teenager, you think you can handle anything, but you’ll get older and realise that you shouldn’t have had to. At least I realised the injustice of my college years being spent cooped up in hospital quarantine at the time, and didn’t try to bottle it up. That’s downright stupid.”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters because… Butter biscuits.” He rubbed his hand across his face, in what was again an uncanny display of vulnerability from the older man. Without dispelling his anger, Danny used the pause to unclench his fists and relax his shoulders. “I may not be one to preach at you about the responsibilities that come with being an adult and how they should dictate how one interacts with children,” Danny knew he didn’t mean it snidely, but he found his jaw stiffen all the same, “But at least, I was in control of what I was doing to you- I would never have really hurt you, whereas your parents-”

“What? I’m sorry?” Danny’s voice was strange, disembodied somehow, with even more of a reverb than he was used to in his ghost form. “You never would have really hurt me? You _did_ hurt me Vlad, many times. Hell, you _electrocuted_ me. You reminded me of the moment I died, the single most painful moment of my life, the moment you’re so hell-bent on getting me to blame my parents for, and you want to tell me you never hurt me? I’m not like you, Vlad, I’m not going to become bitter and blame the rest of the world for my problems. I know when to admit I was in the wrong.” He, like Vlad, was trying not to yell, containing his anger within a wobbly tone, but perhaps he shouldn’t have, as a few seconds later, the lights fizzled out and the fire flickered. 

Danny touched down one foot, then the other, on the plush carpet, eyes ablaze with fury. Vlad regarded him with a weary expression Danny never thought he’d see on the older man’s face, and yet one that seemed all too familiar, as if it belonged there, as if he’d always been that way, just when no one was looking.

“How dare you, Vlad.” Vlad looked away. 

He exhaled, a long, deep sigh, and de-transformed as a sign of surrender.

“But you know, the stupid thing is, I… I want to forgive you. Not… I dunno. You may have the benefit of being an adult who can…” he gestured with his hand, palm down, “Think deeply about the ways you exert power over people, but I’ve had to do a lot of growing up these past few years. And you know what? Yeah. It makes me mad I died, and that my parents hunt me, or that Danny Fenton will never be a good enough son, or student, or whatever. Though I’m also mad that I couldn’t turn to you. But that’s just it- this growing up I’ve had to do, it wasn’t easy, and I don’t think I would have had to do it if it wasn’t for being half ghost. I don’t know if I ever would have had to do it, to be honest. Like, how many people can say they’ve watched their friends and family die to teach them not to cheat on tests?” 

Nothing but the crackle of the fire interrupted Danny, his audience silent, pensive, captivated.

“What happened, happened. We both went through some stuff we never should have had to go through, and maybe, maybe… that was hard for you too, and you’re not the invincible old man I think you are.” 

Vlad raised his eyebrows at that, but still said nothing.

“I... I actually dunno where I’m going with this,” Danny admitted, scratching the back of his neck, an obvious tell he was anxious, one he knew even Vlad could spot. “I guess, you’re right. I resent my parents. But it won’t get me anywhere. I also resent you, and you resent me, that’s not getting us anywhere. And we can’t do this forever.”

Cautiously, he stepped towards Vlad’s chair, and despite the words just uttered into the quiet room, his face hardened, as if expecting a fight. Danny paid no notice, and sat down on the floor next to Vlad, leaning against the arm of the chair. He stared into the fire, watching it char and consume the logs in its heated grasp.

“I don’t have to forgive you,” he said, without looking away from the fire.

“I understand. I hurt you.”

There was a pause. The fire spat, a fleck of molten ash landing on the carpet but fizzling out almost immediately. It had never been any threat. Or maybe it had. Maybe, there on that expensive carpet, the safety of the knowledge nothing bad had yet to happen was but a flimsy dam for the potential for disaster.

“And yet, you’re still here.”

Danny paused, and closed his eyes, content with feeling the heat on his face. The fire could burn without him watching it. He was tired.

“So I am.”


	10. Admission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Jazz got rejected from college, Maddie should have seen it coming.

When Jazz got rejected from college, Maddie should have seen it coming.

Angela had said differently, of course, when she’d been crying down the phone at her the minute she reached a landline. So had Mr Lancer- in fact, the man seemed positively in shock. Jazz Fenton, rejected from college? Danny, with his slipping grades and truancy maybe, but Jazz? The Jazz Fenton, with the highest CAT and SAT scores in Casper High history? Surely not.

But that was where they were wrong. That was where Maddie was wrong; had gone wrong.

Jazz had been on about her entrance essay for months. It was almost her life’s work- certainly a heart’s worth, and if that hadn’t been evident all the time she’d spent on it, it sure was evident the minute she walked out of the interview room, head in her hands.

It wasn’t even a long essay, more of a statement, an extended cover letter of sorts, in which Jazz was to prove her enthusiasm in psychology and, of course, her personal interests in and around the subject area. She’d gone above and beyond- the first draft three months before the deadline came out at 12 pages, 11pt Arial, single-spaced. She insisted it was easier that way- to get all her thoughts onto a page (and, it later transpired, pinned to her bedroom wall, as if some kind of delicate plot) before spending a month or so cutting it down to size. The word count didn’t matter; it had to be short enough that Danny be able to read the main points without getting bored. A strange test, Maddie would admit, but ultimately an approach she admired- while not the strictly scientific method she’d have gone for, it was quirks like those that made Jazz the most likeable Fenton.

Not only was there plenty of time for Maddie to stop and consider the impending doom, but there were numerous points- drama, upset, disagreements- where Maddie could have (or should have) taken a step back and realise how stupid she’d been.

Jazz had focused on Ghost Envy. Of course she had- she’d spent nearly three years previous researching it. There’d been a week-long bust-up in the Fenton household when it transpired Jazz had interviewed the malevolent Ghost Boy for her studies, in which Jazz, for all her research into the anarchy and obsession and corruption of ghosts, defended it to the death of her social life (and then some). If Maddie could forget the week of tension and cold stares, he couldn’t forget the vehemence with which Jazz defended her point, even in the face of her upset mother- Maddie’s distress at having failed to protect her children from Phantom’s grasp far outweighed her revulsion at the ghost itself in this instance, and oh, how she’d wept at her daughter. Yet, never once had it occurred to her, even when it would have worked in her favour!

Jazz should never have done her essay on ghosts.

Maddie knew this- of course, she knew this. Hadn’t she gone through enough, back in her time, trying to get her work acknowledged for course credits in college, her subject approved for her PhD? How many tears had she shed? Hadn’t it been traumatising enough, all the lab sessions spent feeling worthless and inferior to her peers,all those sleepless nights, all the crying into her pillow?

She’d only come out the other side thanks to Jack. Jack, the man who didn’t- no, couldn’t- take no for an answer.

And she was supposed to be that for Jazz. Her rock, her immovable object, a gentle force pushing her to reframe her points into something more palatable to anyone outside of the state. One could discuss the paranormal without using the word “ghost”, or consider ghosts a belief, a hallucination, an experience. Never should Maddie have let Jazz write her essay taking ghosts to be real in the first sentence before ploughing into a delicate psychological thesis that hinged entirely on that fact- or, as some would indeed consider it, that _fiction_.

Sure, in a town that saw ghost attacks on a daily basis, Jazz could hardly be blamed. But that was just it- this hadn’t always been Maddie’s reality. She should have been able to step back, to see the wider picture for the sake of her daughter, and she failed.

Perhaps it was for the best Maddie was too caught up in the lament for her catastrophic failure that she didn’t notice her son- the one no one expected to get into the local community college, let alone the portfolio of Ivys Jazz had applied to- disappear for a few days. Perhaps it was for the best, in many senses; if knowing her son and Danny Phantom were one and the same hadn’t done her in, surely the news he’d taken an exhausting trip round the university cities of the Midwest to reveal himself in the dark of night to unsuspecting admission officials probably would have finished her off.

Indeed, ghosts had always been real to Maddie but never the concept of Jazz being rejected from college (until it happened, that was), so why should she question it when, one after the other, Jazz’s colleges phoned to offer apologies, and congratulations. And why ponder their caginess, or Danny’s wide but weary grin when he came home an hour after curfew?

There were a lot of things Maddie should have seen coming.


End file.
